The 2013 Nansemond-Suffolk Academy golf team brings with it understandably high expectations after returning the entire roster that won the state championship last year.

Senior captain Stuart Brazil leads the group, which includes junior Trey Wren, sophomores Will Comer, Keith Cooper and Zach Roberts and freshman Thomas Meyers.

They are joined this season by seniors Zack Hess and Katie Porter and junior Madison Ryan.

Katie Murphy also joins the team as coach after having guided the junior varsity team last year. She was a five-year golfer for Nansemond-Suffolk Academy before graduating in 2007. She played for three years at the College of William & Mary and is now the Ladies Professional Golf Association Head Golf Pro at Sleepy Hole Golf Course in Suffolk.

Most of the nine-member team this year is unfamiliar to Murphy after her stint with JV, save for Ryan.

“They’re all fresh off the block for me, but I’ve known them from being around it,” she said. “It’s not really been too big of a learning curve for me.”

For example, she has a good handle on the expectations.

“We’ve got some pretty lofty ones,” she said. “They are returning state champions, and the sentiment is we want to get back there. For them, though, we’re kind of just going to take it one match at a time. We know that everybody’s going to be gunning for them. They’ve got a five-foot-wide target on their backs.”

The team did not manage to win everything last year, however, and that certainly dictates one of the objectives this season.

“I believe, collectively, their goal is to win the (Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools) as a team,” Murphy said. “I know they came in third last year, and they were a little disappointed in that, so they want to see themselves be competitive and give themselves a chance to win it, and get back to the state tournament and see if they can’t repeat. And I think that’s where we’re headed.”

The teams to place ahead of NSA in the TCIS were Cape Henry Collegiate and Greenbrier Christian.

“I think Cape Henry is the biggest challenge from what I’m hearing,” Murphy said.

But she also admitted she was not sure which team is the best in the conference yet, and she was enjoying not being distracted by any kind of knowledge about that.

For Murphy, returning to Nansemond-Suffolk Academy has been perfect.

“Love it,” she said. “Absolutely love it. It’s just like coming home.”

And her motivation to help guide the varsity team is bolstered by the memories she holds from high school.

“This team, being on that varsity team was the highlight of my career,” she said. “I’ve done it at every level. College doesn’t hold a candle to it. It’s so great and to be able to coach them. They’re such a good group of kids, just to be around them, it’s very humbling.”

Murphy cited the true team spirit of the NSA squad as one of the key ingredients to its success.

“They just get along so well and that’s just so refreshing coming back from the way it was in college and everybody being very competitive within each other,” she said. “(The NSA golfers are) more interested in pumping each other up, and it’s just so great to see that at that age because everybody wants to be the best. You know how that goes. That’s just ego, but they don’t seem to have a whole lot of that and I think that’s why they were so successful last year.”

Nansemond-Suffolk travels to North Carolina to face First Flight High School Thursday in the first match of the regular season.